Dakota Conflict Trials: 1862 - Largest Mass Execution In U.s. History
platform rope
In Mankato, Minnesota, at 10 A.M. on the morning of December 26, soldiers led 38 prisoners (one person was reprieved between the date of Lincoln's order and the execution), wearing white muslin coverings and singing Dakota Sioux death songs, to gallows arranged on a circular scaffold. The warriors took the places assigned to them on the platform; ropes were placed around each neck. At the signal of three drumbeats, a single blow from an ax cut the rope that held the platform and 37 people fell to their deaths. One prisoner's rope broke and he consequently had to be rehung, prolonging whatever agony he may have felt before dying. A loud cheer went up from the thousands of spectators gathered to witness the event. The bodies were buried in a mass grave on the edge of town. Soon area physicians, including one named Mayo, arrived to collect cadavers for their medical research.
The hanging stands as the largest mass execution in American history.
User Comments
10 months ago
THis has no proof
almost 2 years ago
only 38 ?!
and this qualifies as "largest mass execution in US history"??
In Waco the FBI executed 77 civilians in cold blood.
In Iraq the US military has executed 104,529 Iraqi civilians in cold blood.
about 3 years ago
The history of everything is changed to protect the victor from future repremend. The victims who died on that gallows ranged in age between 12 and 36 on average with a few older exeptions. The vengeful charges of their white neigbors targeted the heads of their respective households. The victims deaths left their respective properties open for legal, hostile takeover, as was their intention. Some of the charges warranting death were as petty as chicken theiving, egg sucking, and trespassing. All victims become murderous "braves" in the postscript. The civil war in postscript became a battle to end slavery. If such were the case one would expect the Emancipation Proclamation to come prior to an illegal military policing action attempt on the part of the North. The only president with a longer of innocent lives taken than Abraham Lincoln is Bill Clinton. Trace his career and watch his skillful media-play as the deathtoll climbs.
over 3 years ago
The story is vastly more complicated than has been portrayed here. Originally over 300 braves (almost 400) were sentenced to be executed. Lincoln personally reviewed the trial records and commuted the sentences for most of them. He could not commute them all because over 400 settlers had been killed and he was balancing the potential of an blood bath and uprising from the local settlers against that of an uprising and blood bath from the native populations. The original violence came from misunderstandings and local mishandling of the national agreements with the native populations, resulting in starvation and pervasive deadly illnesses among them. Both sides suffered, were wronged, and wronged the other. It was an ugly problem, with the only available solutions all lose-lose scenarios. Lincoln did a remarkable job of trying to manage a bad situation.
almost 4 years ago
They deserved what was coming to them. Power to the white man
over 4 years ago
The more I learn about this, the more upset I become with the government and the way Lincoln is portrayed in history.